The Abandoned
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: [Spin off from end of season 3] Atlantis has been uprooted and moved, throwing everything into turmoil for its inhabitants, but they aren't the only ones affected. Two teams off world missed their check in and have dialed home to find...there's no answer.
1. Chapter 1

Full Summary: When the city of the Ancients was uprooted and moved, it threw things into turmoil for the inhabitants of the city.

But they were not the only ones affected.

Two teams, on a survey of a planet, missed their check-in with Atlantis and have no idea what has happened to it.

All they know is that they've dialed home, only to find that there's no answer at the other end of the line.

Now, thinking that they're the only members of the Atlantis Expedition left alive, they must find a way back to Earth--while surviving Pegasus without any back-up or means of getting supplies.

They will live by their wits and it is almost assured that they will lose lives if they don't stay sharp.

These are the Abandoned and this is their fight for survival. 

A/N: Over the past few weeks, a Stargate: Atlantis role play has been created and moderated by me over on the Techiedom forum (see my profile for a URL) and it's zipping right along so quickly and so wonderfully that I couldn't resist asking my little RP minions for permission to create a novelization based on it. Now, when I say 'based', that means it's being cobbled together from forum posts and expanded upon to fit a more traditional fanfic format. The plot is _primarily_ mine (uh, hi, admin. of the forum, maker of all things awesome, remember?), but the characters and much of their dialogue is derived from their owners, which are as follows: 

The characters Timothy Sampson, Bennett Hall and Lydia Winter belong to me. Chris Perkins and Jason Campbell belong to Reyclou. Liana Wolfe belongs to Liana Wolfe. Riley Hunter belongs to Pretzel. Jamie Harris belongs to nwfairy.

Now. Buckle up. We're launching a new Stargate spin-off, bitch. It got off to a bit of a rocky start, but we've hit our stride now, so stick with me and watch the drama unfold.

-

There were probably worse ways to spend the day than wandering the seemingly endless lush green fields of M3X-009, sneezing one's head off.

However, if there were, Doctor Lydia Winter couldn't find them.

After a full two days of being trapped in the tiny village of the Piran, waiting out a nasty storm, the sun was disgustingly cheerful about its return to the sky after such an extended absence and the pollen seemed to be taking perverse pleasure in being more prevalent than before.

It was for this reason that Winter sneezed so violently with every few steps she took. These were not just ordinary sneezes, these were patented Lydia Winter Full Body sneezes. These were the sneezes that made the marines--Williamson, Hall, Mason, Ramstead and Pierce--laugh to themselves because it appeared as though the senior scientist on their little team was suffering from a small, abrupt seizure every few moments.

These were also the sneezes that caused said marines to get small pebbles chucked at their heads for their insolence.

You did not make fun of a woman like Winter's allergies if there was anything small and tossable within immediate range.

Of course, she _had_ accidentally pegged an engineer...who was currently glaring at her and looking like he wanted to toss something slightly larger and more pain inducing at _her_ head... Perkins was his name if she wasn't too terribly mistaken. Though she might've been…

It seemed to her that of all the members of the two teams she was currently offworld with she only knew one person beyond just being acquainted with their faces. She was going to have to rectify that…and she would start now.

Winter waved at the tech somewhat sheepishly, perfectly aware of the fact he was wearing the 'vengeance' look, and hoping she wouldn't have to invest in itching powder remedies any time in the near future. One enemy on Atlantis was enough--especially when that enemy was Rodney McKay--she certainly didn't need _another_...

And techs _were_ lauded as being terribly creative when it came to revenge...

Maybe a quick handshake and smile would smooth things over before she burned a bridge that wasn't even built yet.

Besides, it never hurt to have someone who could conceivably become a trustworthy minion on your side...

She started across the field, intent on adding to her blossoming evil empire. She noted that his posture grew rigid, as though he were preparing himself to do battle with some sort of terrible monster and _not _have a friendly little chat the woman in charge--or at least, the woman in charge until they got back to the city.

Winter was about to speak when he cut her off.

"Doctor Winter," he began, "It must be hard to examine the local geology when you throw your samples around."

Though outwardly she laughed, inside Winter seethed.

Great. Sarcasm. Was there no end to it in this damned galaxy? Must there always be a McKay haunting her--even when McKay wasn't actually _around_?

"Nowhere near as difficult as it must be to--"

A sudden, loud buzzing filled the air, chilling and precise. It thrummed across Winter's nerves like a high C on the violin, played near enough to pierce her eardrums.

Winter's reply died instantly her throat only to be replaced with another word, shouted anxiously. "Darts!"

Jason Campbell--a former Captain in the air force and a current astrophysicist for the expedition--was the only one with enough sense to shout, "Scatter!"

Naturally, the desperate shout from a former military officer--in addition to the sound of the rapidly closing darts--was enough to get _everyone_ moving. Every member of Atlantis personnel started running as though the devil himself were at their backs.

Winter was no exception. She started sprinting into the grove of trees nearby, Jason somewhere to the left ahead of her, the new guy and several others behind, wracking her brain and trying to get over the disorientation that followed the changes of scenery.

They were all _supposed_ to be heading towards the two Jumpers that the teams had arrived in, parked in a clearing not far from their current positions, but that was before the darts had popped out of nowhere and started streaking across the sky.

Now, she had only a very rudimentary grasp on where she was heading and whether or not there would be a Jumper waiting...

If she miscalculated by a few feet...

Well, she'd just have to _not_ miscalculate, that's all...

Her lungs burned and her legs started to ache, but she pushed onwards anyway.

That damned Jumper had to be here _somewhere_.

Minutes stretched by as though they were hours, screams, guns going off, pandemonium coming from all side invaded Winter's senses until finally, the explosion from a drone that had popped seemingly out of nowhere colliding with one of the darts sent a wave of heat over her skin. It stole her breath, but nowhere near as much as seeing one of the Puddle Jumpers that she had been so desperately seeking dropping its cloak right in front of her.

The door to the Jumper was open and a shout burst from within, "Get in and hold on!"

The moment that the Puddle Jumper shimmered into view, Winter changed course, much to her kneecap's dismay and pushed herself to the limit. Every muscle in her body protested the movement and the drastic change of trajectory, and the scientist was--like _most_ of the science team of Atlantis--far from being an athlete, but she made it through the Jumper doors, tripping and landing on her knees _hard_ in the process.

Cursing the tears in her uniform pants, she got to her feet just in time to see another of her teammates getting scooped up by the dart that had flown through the gate.

Equal parts terrified and furious, Winter took her anger out on the nearest available target, turning to the woman in the pilot's seat.

"What the HELL were you thinking, keeping the Jumper invisible?!" She huffed and puffed, hanging onto the pilot's seat. "You were supposed to be READY for the team's arrival, not hiding in the smegging weeds!"

Several things happened simultaneously then, forcing Winter out of her tirade. The thump of another scientist collapsing to catch her breath behind her was the _first_ thing which yanked her out of anger--followed by another motley little group collapsing once they reached the safety of the ancient ship; the second was the shout that came over her headset--

_"This is Campbell, we lost Ramstead. I'm going for the other Jumper."_

Winter snapped directly into bitch-in-charge mode, turning to help her teammate off the floor and into a seat while shouting into her headset, "Campbell, you idiot, you'll be killed! You're not a pilot!"

Her headset crackled to life again. _"I'm not a **good** pilot, but I happen to excel in making things explode -- which might be a useful skill right about now. And I never said anything about FLYING it."_

Winter turned back to the Captain occupying the pilot's seat, only barely registering the nametag on her uniform--J. Harris--before she realized that the other woman was tapping her _own _radio.

"Campbell there's a moon that's circling Piran, I'm sending you the coordinates. Put up the cloak, and concentrate on getting there. I'm going to double back and draw away the attention away from you and meet you there. Do you understand?"

Captain Harris hit the button to close the door of the Jumper almost casually, causing Winter's blood to boil. "Hold on, this is going to be one bumpy ride, folks." 

Winter would have shoved Harris out of her seat and taken control of the Jumper if she'd possessed the Ancient gene. "Draw attention AWAY from HIM?! Excuse me? You have a Jumper full of civilians, he is on his own, now is NOT THE TIME TO PLAY HERO, Fly girl! You have a responsibility to get this team to safety!"

Winter gestured at the nameless engineer she'd whacked with a rock not-so-long- ago, "You! Start the dialing sequence for Atlantis--and don't give me that 'how dare you order me around' look, Mister, we don't have time for it--"

Winter tapped her radio again. "Campbell! You're civilian now, you take orders from me! Don't do anything stupid--we're going to try getting back to Atlantis!"

Even as Perkins moved to start the dialing sequence, Captain Harris roared angrily, "How dare you suggest I'm trying to play the hero card? It's logic, you stupid woman; I'm a trained pilot--_I_ can get away from the darts easily; _he_ can't! And _Doctor_ Winter," Captain Harris laid a delicate stress on the word, "do you think it would be a good idea to fly into Atlantis under Dart fire?! One blast could take out the entire control room!"

Harris suddenly twisted in her seat, using the Jumper's controls to avoid a shot being fired by one of the Darts. Winter nearly fell into the other woman's lap but righted herself.

The Captain looked up at Winter, her expression hard as steel, even as she maneuvered the Jumper. "I'm the only one that can fly worth anything here; and I'm going to have to use every trick I've learned. You want to take control--fine. Do it outside of a combat situation. Now, sit down and hold on!"

As much as Winter detested being powerless--considering their current situation, she had no choice but to defer to Harris' barked orders.

"Alright, fine; we'll draw the darts away from the gate, slip into cloak and double back...but the _second_ we can lose them, I want us back at the gate! We can't play cat and mouse all damn day..."

Gnawing her bottom lip until it turned crimson, she hit her headset, trying to keep both temper and anxiety under control.

"Campbell? Change of plans..."

"Bad timing, Lydia..." was the reply from the other end, followed by a low, dull hum that could only be… 

Winter's eyes bulged. The reception on her headset was clear enough for her to _hear_ Jumper Two's weapons powering up. A glance out into the clearing where the other ship hovered confirmed her fears.

"Oh...oh no. No, no, no, no, no. You did NOT just bring your weapons systems online!" Winter grabbed hold of Harris' arm and started shaking her. "Fly. FLY! Get us the hell out of here! NOW!"

When half of the other occupants within the Jumper looked at Winter oddly, no doubt wondering what the hell the scientist had been smoking to cause so many drastic changes in mood and opinion in such a short period of time, Lydia flailed her arms.

"You don't get it, when Jason Campbell is behind the wheel, SHIT EXPLODES WITHOUT BIAS!"


	2. Chapter 2

Within five minutes, the situation inside the Jumper went from bad to worse, through a series of unfortunate events that Winter had the privilege of watching from within Jumper One.

For starters, Jumper Two--with Campbell and, if she remembered correctly, Williamson the Marine trapped inside--had a dart hot on their tails, which, while bad, wasn't the least of their problems. The _real_ trouble started when Jumper Two fired two drones.

While the first hit its mark, destroying the Wraith Dart when it struck its underbelly in a spectacular shower of sparks and flame, the second drone took a winding, leisurely path that led it straight to the next available target.

Namely, the Jumper that Winter and crew currently resided in.

There was a muffled sound that came from being Lydia and she turned to see one of the scientists--blonde, tall, somewhat green around the gills and named Liana Wolfe--with her hand over her mouth in horror.

And not the generic 'Oh, we're totally screwed' sort of horror that usually accompanied these types of situations; no, this was the 'Oh, I think I did that' sort of horror that accompanied someone who didn't know how to control the Ancient gene's hold over technology.

"I'm sorry!" Wolfe exclaimed. "Ancient technology kinda…likes me?"

Winter gritted her teeth and _glared_ at the other woman.

To say that things were not going well was probably the understatement of the century.

To say that she was going to be killing several people as soon as her life was out of danger was even _more_ of an understatement.

The first urge to indulge in homicide was going to involve Campbell...him and his damned misfired drone!

The second urge--provided, of course, that they managed to survive--was going to be directed at Harris for forgetting to turn on the inertial dampeners in the jumper--thus allowing all members stuck in the back and not _seated_ to get flung around (it didn't escape Winter's notice that she was the only person lucky enough to not be seated)...

And third? Third, she was going to have Wolfe's head on a pike...

Because the drone that they _thought_ they'd outrun was suddenly following them like a faithful puppy...

_Fantastic_...

Struggling to remain upright, she staggered towards Wolfe and _shouted_, "If you want to live to see your next birthday, I suggest you get control of that damned thing! You're the only person in this ship other than our pilot with the Ancient gene!"

"Winter! Get up here and sit down," Harris hollered from the cock-pit "Yelling at Doctor Wolfe won't do much good. I highly doubt you can scare her more than the threat of, you know, Impending Doom?"

Winter stopped her tirade just long enough to glance over her shoulder and see Harris tapping her radio before she got knocked off her feet by another spectacular flight maneuver. "Campbell, dial the gate to any address you can remember off the top of your head that isn't Atlantis, and that isn't populated. A space gate, maybe, it doesn't really matter. I have a plan."

Harris banked the jumper just as Winter was struggling back to her feet, causing her to drop once more and swear in so many different dialects it made even the team's linguist look at her funny.

Winter's radio crackled to life once more, Campbell coming in over the airwaves. _"I'm on it. We're dialing up a space gate over a volcanic planet."_

Lydia didn't get to see much over the next few minutes, what with getting thrown around as she _tried_ to get to the safety of a seat, but once the Stargate had been opened, Harris piloted the Jumper towards it, increasing her speed to the point that it was making Winter nauseous. The drone was still close behind, arcing through the air and following as if the tail end of the Jumper was magnetic and when the Jumper got within a few feet of the event horizon, Harris pulled up _hard_, missing the gate completely while the drone barreled through the blue.

The gate closed, just as Winter finally got to her feet, leaning heavily on Wolfe's seat and glared down at the blonde.

"It's not _my_ fault it liked me!" she defended, looking ashamed despite her claim of innocence.

Winter glared _harder_, even as Harris was ordering Campbell to dial Atlantis. "You nearly got us killed!"

"I didn't _mean_ to," Wolfe said, casting her gaze away from Winter.

"What the…" Harris' voice erupted from the cock pit. "Campbell, the gate's not activating. Why?"

After sufficiently recovering from being tossed to and fro within the Jumper on its mad dash--first on evasive maneuvers and then up and over the Stargate--Winter was bruised, battered and all around in a very foul mood.

Struggling towards the cockpit now that the Jumper was still and hovering, Winter heard Campbell's voice in her ear declaring, quite possibly, the worst news she could ever hope _not_ to hear.

_"The last chevron isn't locking. Logic dictates that, barring a freak mishap with the Gate itself -- either there's already a wormhole established on Atlantis, or there is no gate on Atlantis to establish a wormhole with."_

There was a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach, followed by a rush of terror that made her somewhat dizzy. A dozen different scenarios danced their way through her head, most of them centering around a burning, crumbled city of the Ancients after a Wraith attack.

That thought, in itself, was bad enough...but what was **really** overwhelming was the fact that--if indeed Atlantis had been destroyed--this little motley crew in these two Jumpers were the last survivors of the Atlantis expedition.

Worst of all...she was the highest 'ranking' civilian...

Winter gathered her scattered wits and shoved down the nausea brought on by nerves, tapping her radio.

"Campbell, I want you to dial another gate...someplace where we can touch down and regroup...camp if necessary. We'll keep trying Atlantis from there."

"God, when did I become the designated dialer? You know," the voice over the headset stated in a mildly patronizing tone, "_We do have a little place called the Alpha Site for just these sorts of scenarios..."  
_  
Harris snorted at that and Winter cast her the nastiest glare in her entire glare arsenal, but the gate sprang to life once more and she thought it wise to take a seat while she had the chance, before the Captain tried to kill her with g-forces alone. 

"Just get us all of us there in one piece, Harris," Winter said, flopping down in the nearest vacant seat. "Preferably with _me_ counted in that number."


	3. Chapter 3

Once the Jumpers touched down, Winter clambered out along with several others. The planet they had landed on was far from being as lush as the one they'd been trapped on with the Piran, but it would do for the time being.

Despite the urge to grab Campbell by the ear and drag him off to scold him for 'quietly' questioning her authority in front of people who were _supposed_ to be listening to her at all times, Winter--with an admirable amount of effort (and digging her fingernails into her palms until she drew blood)--kept calm.

Her voice only _slightly_ cracked when she called out to get everyone's attention.

"First off--anybody missing any limbs?"

There was a general murmuring from the assembled crowd in the negative.

"Okay...no mortal wounds, just scrapes and scratches all around?"

The crowd muttered and a few people rubbed at various sore body parts, no doubt wishing they could complain more...but knowing they shouldn't.

"How many did we lose?" Winter did a mental tally, counting heads and felt her spirits sink.

They'd lost almost their entire military escort.

That was bad.

There was a sudden explosion of blue sparks from the Jumper that Jason Campbell and a marine had just exited.

That was worse.

First little miss drone magnet, now mister electromagnetic field.

God, this was going to turn into an utter disaster.

"Alrighty folks," Harris called suddenly, snapping Winter out of her reverie. "Find a place to sit and stay. Get your bearings back; we're going to try to get Atlantis on the phone, then go home."

With that, she headed back to her 'Jumper, tapping Winter on the shoulder as she went. "Come on, Weir's going to want know what happened back there. You bein' head honcho and everything; she's going to want to talk to ya."

After a few words re-enforcing Harris' orders, Winter scrambled back into the Jumper, her temper dangerously close to boiling over. She caught Harris by the shoulder as she sat down.

"Harris, we need to have a _word_..." Her tone was all threat. "We both know that we should wait a few minutes to dial out again anyways...just in case Atlantis has a wormhole open..."

Winter took the nearest seat to the Air Force Captain. "We can use that time to _chat_."

Harris glanced at the physicist and started the dialing sequence anyway. "A word, Doctor Winter? If it was what happened back on Piran. It was just normal protocol."

Winter launched into the quietest version of a tirade she could managed as Harris dialed Atlantis.

"It was NOT protocol. Need I remind you, this is a _civilian_ expedition. Just because you're Air Force does not mean you're in charge. It's _my_ job to keep everyone calm under fire--you undermining me in front of my staff---in front of the people who need to know they can depend on _me_ in sticky situations--is harmful to morale. You can't just try and push me out of my place of authority, Harris...and I hate to be the one to break this to you, but there are more scientists here than there are military personnel. While they might listen to you over me at first, don't think they'll keep looking to you for guidance during crisis situations just because of the uniform you wear."

Winter took a breath.

"You suggested heading towards a _moon_, Harris, when we had a Stargate right in front of us; you couldn't think your way out of a paper bag--eventually, they'll catch onto that and then your little power trip will come to an **abrupt** halt."

Winter watched as the fifth Chevron was encoded, still not pausing. "This is Pegasus, these are people you'll have to keep working with; _I_ am someone you'll have to keep working with--and what's more, if I bring grievances before Doctor Weir or Colonel Sheppard, they will take them seriously. It's not a threat, it's a _promise_; I'm an invaluable member of the science team, you're a low ranking military grunt, who do you think they'd be more worried about keeping?"

"I'd rather we didn't have to have a little power struggle under such extreme circumstances, but you seem hell bent on being in control when you don't belong there. Now, you can either straighten up and work _with_ me or you'll be finding yourself on the first flight back to Earth."

"Damn it!" Harris swore, banging on the DHD, trying to get it to lock.

With her point made, Winter had hardly taken notice of the rest of the dialing sequence, but now that the final Chevron had refused to fall into place, she paled considerably.

"We're in trouble," the Captain said, turning to look at Winter with worry in her eyes.

Winter turned to Harris. "That would be one thing we seem to be in complete agreement about...but let's try it a few more times before we panic..."

The physicist turned back to look out of the Jumper. "And if we still can't get a lock...let _me_ break the news to everyone."

Harris nodded. "I'll try a couple more times. And Doctor--" she paused, trying to find the right words, "I don't want to fight with you."

"Ditto," Winter replied, vacating her seat and starting towards the back of the Jumper.

She was stopped by Campbell striding in, looking serious. "Doctor, Captain," he said coolly. "When you two are done, I think we have another problem brewing out there."

Harris looked at Winter. "You going to go handle it?" she asked, her tone clearly tacking on the unspoken phrase, _Or should I?_

"This concerns the both of you, Captain Harris, unless you want to put the fate of this entire team solely in Doctor Winter's hands -- in which case I'd appreciate a running head start."

Jason kept his eyes on Harris, ignoring the glare he was almost certain to get from Winter.

"I don't know if you two noticed, but there seems to be a distinct LACK of an Alpha Site out there. From what I've seen, it looks like something WAS here, but was hauled off pretty hastily -- the whole damn site evac'd through the gate. Now the way I see it, there's only two reasons you evacuate a site like this -- either everyone's needed back home, or the site itself has been compromised. If it's the former, it might have something to do with why we can't contact Atlantis. If it's the latter, I'd feel better finding another place to cool our heels, if you get my drift."

Harris looked at Winter expectantly. "Well Doc, better go organize your troops, 'cause we need ta get the hell off this rock."


	4. Chapter 4

Timothy Drake Sampson (Tim to all those who bothered to get to know him) was a man good at fading into the background. It wasn't intentional, just his way; a habit left over from years of trying to be as unnoticeable as possible in high school so as to avoid swirlies and being stuffed in his locker. Even his profession saw to it that he faded into the background--geology was hardly a flashy field of learning. Maybe if he had stayed in medical school longer than a year, he would've been better at gathering attention, but as it was, he was used to studying rocks, not people.

It was for this reason that he managed to stay out of everyone's way as they piled out of the Jumpers--going unnoticed by the muttering crowd--and it was _also_ for this reason that he accidentally overheard the discussion between Doctor Winter and Captain Harris.

Tim had stuck near the Jumper, not really wanting to 'mingle' and neither Doctor Winter nor Captain Harris had seen him lurking by the back of the Ancient ship as they conversed heatedly and attempted to dial the Stargate.

He could understand where both parties were coming from, certainly, and if he'd felt less panicked about the fact that the final Chevron wouldn't lock, he might have bothered to ruminate on the 'power struggle' situation's dynamics long enough to pick a side.

However, Tim's stomach dropped out when he heard Winter instruct Harris to keep dialing and that if they couldn't get through, she'd have to break the news to the assembled crew...

Of course, there was still a chance that Atlantis had a wormhole open...

There was also a chance there was no Atlantis _to_ keep a wormhole open...

And the inevitable conclusion to that horrible thought was that they were _alone_ in the galaxy.

_No need to panic, no need to panic, don't panic, don't panic, DON'T YOU DARE PANIC!_

Tim staggered away from the Jumper and towards the small cluster of personnel sitting together on the grass, plopping down next to the Marine whose name he hadn't caught.

While under ordinary circumstances, he would have preferred to be alone...right now, he needed people. He needed to feel less isolated.

He also needed to put his head between his knees and stop hyperventilating.

And, despite the funny looks that accompanied the action, he did just that. It helped a little, but the breathing break was cut short.

Now, it was obvious that being thrust into the spotlight isn't somewhere anyone likes to be, but Winter took it in stride and with head held high, stalked out of the Jumper.

The expectant, anxious faces that awaited her--Tim being one of them--forced her to audibly swallow a lump in her throat.

It was no secret that there was no love lost between Lydia Winter and Elizabeth Weir...but for an instant, Lydia had the sensation that this must be what it was like to be in Weir's shoes.

They were horrible shoes.

Awful shoes.

Ghastly shoes that nobody alive should be forced to wear...

If she ever saw her again, Winter swore to herself she'd give Weir the respect she deserved...

_If she ever saw her again._

"Ladies and gentlemen, as senior ranking scientist here it's my duty to...speak with you about out current situation."

Winter took a deep breath. "We've attempted dialing Atlantis several times and our attempts have been met with failure. There is no way of sugar coating what I have to say, so I won't bother to try. There's a good chance that Atlantis has been compromised...or destroyed...and given the lack of--of life here at the Alpha site, the prospects are rather grim."

"We will need to relocate immediately...if the Alpha site was indeed compromised before we got here rather than evacuated, whoever compromised it might be coming back..."

"Prepare to leave this planet immediately...and..." Lydia's expression was stony and tightly controlled. "Though it's not confirmed yet...we must take into consideration the very real possibility that we are the last surviving members of the Atlantis expedition."

Tim, meanwhile, had made the mistake of standing up to listen to Doctor Winter's announcement and now was beginning to regret it.

_Atlantis._

Tim blinked.

_Expedition._

He blinked again.

_Last. Surviving. Members._

The words ricocheted about in his head and the world started to sway, his surroundings tilting and shifting until the ground under his feet seemed to slip away, leaving him to hit the grass face first in a dead faint.

The entire group watched him fall flat on his face, Jason Campbell muttering, "Confessor. You didn't have to jump to conclusions, Lyds."

He raised his voice to be heard over the murmurings. "Unfortunately that last hit disabled our other jumper. I'm gonna need a few people to help grab what we can and move it into this Jumper as quickly as possible, _please_."

Jason moved toward Sampson and, with a heft and a grunt, lifted the man's weight onto his shoulder, intending to half-carry, half-drag the man into the safety of Harris's Jumper.

"I wasn't jumping to conclusions!" Lydia defended, moving to support the other side of Sampson and take some of the strain off Campbell. "It's a possibility. Just like Atlantis being safe and sound is a possibility. I just don't want anybody...you know...going in blind, in case Atlantis _is_ gone."

Lydia's voice dropped to a whisper as they walked with the unconscious man in tow. "You know as well as I do that we've dialed repeatedly...there would have been a break at one point or another if there was a 'gate at the other end to receive us..."

"The only people I give two shits about in this whole galaxy are in that city," Jason hissed. "I'm not writing them off that quickly. Even so, Weir's not an idiot. If she saw destruction raining down, she'd leave a remnant. Hell, she'd throw the whole expedition through the gate if she had to."

Once inside the Jumper, Jason let go of his side of Tim, leaving Winter to arrange him in a seat and turned away, but could not hide a wince from Winter as he straightened.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Jumper to scrap."

Winter merely nodded and turned back to look at her charge. The geologist she had been supporting groaned and his head lolled back, eyes rolling and eyelids fluttering.

He was coming around...good, that meant she'd have time to catch Campbell before he got too far.

For Tim, with Winter standing over him, everything was unfocused. Whether that was because of his glasses hanging askew or because of his disorientation, he couldn't be certain.

For a few precious seconds, he didn't remember where he was or what was going on, but that respite was too brief and it all came rushing back to him.

The ceiling above him was that of a Jumper...and that Jumper very well may have been one of only two left in the entire galaxy...

Tim felt an asthma attack coming on as he was shifted into a seat by some unseen force and he gasped for breath, gesturing with his hands clumsily as his brain warred over which was more important; the need to panic or the need to breathe.

Winter watched Campbell go but wasn't afforded the opportunity to run after him. Her new charge was suddenly flailing and turning somewhat blue in the face.

It didn't take a genius to figure out the man was in a full blown asthma attack, and Winter grabbed him by the front of his jacket to try and get him to look at her.

"Do you have an inhaler?"

He nodded, still gasping for air like a fish out of water, and Winter started patting him down, finding a lump in one of his pockets and drawing it out, stuffing the business end in his mouth.

"Breathe." A little 'swish' sound came from the contraption as she pressed the button to release the medication inside and he followed her instruction.

Tim took as many breaths off the inhaler as he dared and then pushed Doctor Winter's hand away, waving one hand as he took several slow, shaky breaths.

"I'll be---" he wheezed and continued unconvincingly, "I'll be fi--" Another wheeze. "Fine!"

"Color me unconvinced." Winter was not about to believe the wheezy man in front of her. She looked at the geologist sternly.

"You stay here and recover...as far as I know, you're the only person here with any medical training beyond basic first aid; we're going to need you--preferably in the pink and _not_ in the puce." Winter turned away from Sampson and strode out of the Jumper.

She let her eyes travel over the gathered staff and picked a scientist out at random.

"You," Winter pointed. "The quiet one...Wolfe, isn't it? Go stay with Sampson. Talk to him. Keep him calm. Everybody else? Let's get cracking on harvesting that Jumper for parts."


	5. Chapter 5

Inside the Jumper, one Liana Wolfe was glaring at the back of Doctor Winter's head as the other woman exited the ship. "Why do I have to be geologist sitter?" She asked of no one in particular before she flopped down in the seat next to Sampson and started rummaging around in her pack for something to read. The old standby 'The Hobbit' had tagged along on her trip--it had come in handy while the teams had been stranded on Piran for several days--but she found her eyes drawn to the recovering geologist. It didn't take a McKay to figure out that he'd had an asthma attack...

Liana blinked at her own thoughts. "Okay, I just used McKay in a mental analogy...is that weird?"

Tim started when he realized that someone had been sent to sit with him...his eyes flew fully open at the other scientist's statement.

Tim wasn't given the opportunity to reply, because Harris--who had just entered the Jumper--cut him off. "Not really."

Wolfe jumped and turned in her seat to look at the other blonde, who simply smiled serenely as she made her way towards the cockpit. "Chilllax hun; Not gonna hurt cha." She paused in her journey over Tim and brushed some of his hair out of his eyes. "I ain't gonna let anythin happen to ya'll."

Sampson blushed, even as Harris took her place in the pilot's seat, taking out a notepad of gate addresses and flicking through it, and then cleared his throat. He was grateful that Harris had cut him off when she did. He didn't do so well when it came to coming up with a witty reply on the spot when he was caught off guard, and she had surely saved him some embarrassment.

However, he couldn't very well sit like a bump on a log, so he jerked the collar of his shirt awkwardly and straightened up.

"Rodney McKay is a man that just begs to have analogies made about him," he replied, thinking that sounded relatively clever. "Er...and I'm sorry you had to babysit me...but I'm fine now, really."

After a moment of hesitation, he stuck his hand out to the woman in front of him, hoping he didn't look too sweaty and nervous (there had always been something about blondes...and brunettes...and redheads...every woman, really, that set him terribly on edge. He couldn't help it.) and praying that she wouldn't ignore _him_ the way she had the marine who'd tried talking to her before.

"Uh...Timothy Sampson. Geologist. You're...uh..."

Wolfe held out her hand without looking up from her book. "Liana Wolfe, Physicist/botanist...and don't worry, I don't really _mind_. If I were out there, it's assured I'd have a blizzard headed my way."

Immensely relieved that Wolfe hadn't ignored him or shot him a nasty look, Tim shot her his best grin. It wasn't dazzling, but it was all he had.

The pun made him smile even wider, leaning in towards Wolfe in a conspiratorial fashion as the other crew members started to trickle into the Jumper, apparently, the scrapping of Jumper Two had taken far less time than he thought it would. "Yes, we want to avoid the _cold shoulder_ at all costs, don't we?"

But Tim's face fell--his heart making an express trip to the bottom of his shoes-- when he saw Winter trailing into the Jumper behind the others, looking directly at him.

"I _heard_ that." With a single eyebrow raised, Winter approached the two scientists she had left in the Jumper, even as Campbell filed past her and sat down in the co-pilot's place, asking Harris about where they were headed. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you're already turning mutinous? What scandal."

She passed them by with a dismissive wave before dropping into the seat nearest the co-pilot. Despite her scolding tone, she was _glad_ that they were loosening up a bit. Playfulness was a _good_ thing...it meant they weren't feeling as panicked as they had been before...and right now, she needed everyone clear-headed--not fainting.

Once Lydia had herself situated, she tapped Campbell on the shoulder. "I do hope you realize you didn't call shotgun..."

"I prefer to consider it 'preservation of interdepartmental relations', i.e. keeping you from killing her," he said, motioning to Harris. Then, realizing Harris probably had the upper hand in a combat situation, added a quick "Or, vice versa."

"Besides," he continued. "Who else on this ship knows what ALL the pretty crystals do?"

"He's right Ma'am, and there are better seat belts in the back anyway." Harris said cheerfully, handing the small notepad filled with gate addresses to the physicist. "I have a few picked out, some have trading partners on 'em; some have no human settlements." She gave a cocky grin. "Pick a place and I'll have ya there Doc."

Winter spared Campbell a good natured glare before turning her attention to the stack of paperwork. "Lord your superior Ancient technological genius over everybody all you want, you're only the co-pilot..."

Lydia made short work of the list, scanning it quickly. "This one...M34-597. Larger town, bigger trading opportunities...maybe even a chance to get to do a little recon. See if anybody's heard anything about Atlantis."

She passed the notepad back and buckled her seat belt, gesturing for anyone who wasn't already buckled-up to do the same and noted that Andrew Mason, one of the few remaining marines the team had, was glaring at Sampson as though he wanted nothing more than to rip his head off his shoulders. Confused about this turn of events, Winter leaned forward to listen as Wolfe explained to Sampson that she thought Mason had a bit of a crush on her.

Winter snorted, but couldn't repress a tiny smile at the interaction between the two.

Sampson glanced around, catching the eye of the marine that Wolfe was clearly referencing and slowly waggled his fingers at the other man, somewhat shakily, and wasn't soothed by the low _growl_ that seemed to emanate from his side of the Jumper.

"Uh...he's...um...he's kinda...you know..._big_." Tim gulped noisily. "Maybe uh...maybe you shouldn't be talking to me, if he's already got dibs...I uh…like all my vertebrae where they are."

Wolfe rolled her eyes. "Oh for the love of God...I'm not a piece of property. I didn't even know his name until half-an-hour ago." She growled, causing the geologist to jump.

"Er...sorry. I don't know anything about Andrew except his name and the fact that he's a marine. Besides, he won't hurt a civilian lest he wants to be left out in the cold."

Tim laughed a little bit nervously. "Eh...eheheh...yes, er...you'll excuse me if that doesn't make me feel much better." He cleared his throat. "I've heard horror stories about Doctor Winter, but I don't think even _she_ could take down a marine."

Winter grinned outright at that, though she hid it well. Obviously, Sampson hadn't heard _enough_ horror stories...

"Meh," Wolfe stated dismissively. "Even if Winter doesn't manage to kill him, I happen to know which plants give you one hell of a stomach ache...and other things."

The sound of the Stargate flashing to life and the Jumper starting for the event horizon was enough to pause their conversation, giving Winter nothing to eavesdrop on. It took less than a minute for the ship to slip through the gate, where it landed on a sandy beach, the back hatch springing open instantly.

"Thank you for flying Puddle Jumper Air," Harris chirped from the pilot's seat, "I hope the service was satisfactory and you choose to fly with us again." Someone snickered, and Harris slid right back into soldier mode. "Alrighty folks, everyone off."


	6. Chapter 6

Reorganizing all the head hopping. It's driving me **mad**, I tell you. MAAAD!

-

M34-597 was a strange planet. The Stargate was situated on an island, which was nothing but white beaches at the outside and dense forest further inland. There were worse places to find yourself stranded, that was for damn sure, but as the small group of survivors proceeded out of the Jumper, two very separate and very _different_ conversations were occurring.

Harris, Campbell and Winter stuck together in one clump, discussing the options available to them currently. Campbell had stuck in the Jumper a few moments longer than anyone else, running a scan of the area, and when he joined the others, he reported that there was a trading post not too far from where they'd landed.

"I'm thinking just a small team should head into the post and look around, the rest can sit here under cloak," he said, "Unless anyone else had any ideas?"

Winter jerked her head in the affirmative. A small team to the settlement sounded like an excellent idea, but that would mean dividing their small military force to the point that it would be pretty useless.

"While I don't like the idea of breaking us up _more_, in this instance, we don't have much of a choice. Jay, you've got enough military training to serve as an escort for me, since I'm the highest ranking civilian here, negotiations and suchlike are meant to be done by me, I'll--" Winter winced noticeably. "I'll leave Harris in charge here with the remaining marines...if that's okay with you, that is, Harris."

Harris shrugged. "That sounds copasetic. I'll have the men, and with permission the scientists, make camp, seeing as it's going to be dark soon." She gestured at the sky vaguely and then looked at Campbell. "Got a gun?"

He patted the holster at his side where a nine millimeter he'd picked up during the Dart scare sat comfortably. "Just this and a stunner. I could do with something larger, but I didn't find anything in the reserves."

"That'll do for now, I think," Harris replied. "I'll get you something with a little more firepower later. Seeing as we shouldn't get into too many problems here. But," her voice got dropped a register, "if we are cut off from Atlantis, we're going to have to be careful who give guns to."

"Well, hell," Winter said in alarm, "you'd better give _me_ one of them then. and Harris is right, if we're going to go, we should start off now before it gets dark. If we hurry, we might make it there and back before sundown...and if we don't...well, let's just burn that bridge when we come to it."

Harris shrugged, handing over her spare gun. "Remember, the end with the hole points away from you." Winter glared at her. Harris laughed. "Just kidding. But don't take the gun out of the holster unless you plan on shooting it. A gun has a nasty habit of escalating situations that need not too."

Winter let out a little huff, but controlled her temper anyways. "Harris, you set up camp and keep everybody in line…" She raised her voice. "If anyone _else_ wants in on this little mission, you're welcome to it...but I wouldn't recommend it. We don't know what's waiting for us."

Surprisingly, Sampson's arm shot into the air. "I'll come!"

Now, to understand _why_ Timothy Sampson--who usually wouldn't be so ready to put his neck on the line--let us rewind.

While Harris, Campbell and Winter had been making plans, Sampson and Wolfe had left the Jumper; Wolfe falling into step with Sampson easily.

He couldn't understand _why_ she did it. In theory, she should've left him the _moment_ she was no longer _required_ to stay with him, but, apparently, that wasn't on the agenda. Unaccustomed to voluntary female companionship off-world, Tim felt out of his element when Liana fell into step next to him.

He stuttered at her "W-w-why uh..I don't mean to be _rude_, you understand...but why're you walking with _me_? I mean--" he gestured vaguely at the marine that had growled at him in the Jumper, "Big strong marine, little wimpy scientist--" Tim indicated himself. "If I were you, I'd be hanging out with the guy who could conceivably save me if something went horribly, horribly wrong...not the guy who tends to _cause_ the 'horribly, horribly wrong' to happen."

Wolfe grinned at him. "Listen. I'm not the kind of girl who waits around for the cliché superhero to get her out of trouble. I can take care of myself. You don't need to worry about me. Besides, who said I didn't _like_ the guy who was likely to cause the 'horribly, horribly wrong'?"

Tim flushed eight different shades, running the spectrum from pink to crimson.

First Doctor Winter patting him down to find his inhaler, then the blonde Captain brushing his hair out of his eyes, now Wolfe outright _flirting_ with him.

Had the world turned upside down or what?

Okay, stupid question, it kinda had...

But, valiantly, he recovered with some effort.

"I...I certainly hope you're not just securing a place in my good graces in case Winter decides we need to reproduce in order to replenish the galaxy with Earth DNA..."

"Maybe..." She said with a smirk before turning mock serious. "You men all have one track minds, don't you?"

Tim blanched. Of course he had a one track mind. She was _laying_ the track his mind was traveling on, the minx, and he was stressed and things were coming out of his mouth all wrong and he felt nauseous suddenly and Wolfe seemed to 'like like' him and oh God why did he EVER agree to leave Earth and--

That was when Winter spoke:

_"If anyone **else** wants in on this little mission, you're welcome to it...but I wouldn't recommend it. We don't know what's waiting for us." _

"I'll come!"

For a moment, Tim didn't register the fact that he was the one who had spoken.

And then he noticed his arm straight up in the air, indicating that he had indeed volunteered.

_Stupid autonomous panic induced muscular movements!_

He'd _thought_ that would get him out of his little situation with Wolfe, but she refused to let him escape, calling to Winter, "I'll go too!"

Winter and Campbell exchanged a look and then shrugged.

"Onward then?" Campbell asked, turning to Winter.

"Tally ho," Winter replied, checking the clip and resetting it in her shiny new nine millimeter.

'The hole points away from you' indeed...

"Let's go."


	7. Chapter 7

As the team of Winter, Campbell, Sampson and Wolfe started away from the encampment, Tim looked at Liana oddly.

"I would've thought you'd want to stay with the rest of the group…"

She smiled at him. "Well, someone's got to keep an **eye** on you."

Tim stared.

And stared some more.

Was his cologne especially attractive to the female of the species today? He just didn't get it...

Even as he walked along, getting the distinct impression that if circumstances were different, Wolfe might've been dropping hints they ought to go arm in arm, he couldn't wrap his head around the _weirdness_ of Pegasus...

And the weirdness of women in general, naturally...

"So...um..." he cleared his throat, wondering how exactly he'd managed to go from 'relatively intelligent man' to 'babbling imbecile without the ability to form a coherent sentence' so very, very quickly. "Uh...botany, huh?"

"Yeah," she replied with a fond, nostalgic smile. "My aunt owned a chain of greenhouses and it sparked a love of plants in me, but it was pretty much even with my love of science. So I took botany as my second major."

Campbell glanced over his shoulder at the far-too-cozy looking scientists that were lagging behind. _"_Are we going to have to call you kids's parents about this?"

Liana glared at him. "I'd watch what you say, if I were you. I happen to know at least five of the plants around here are good for an itching powder substitute."

"That so?" Jason asked in a mildly bemused tone. "Well, I guess I'll just have to watch what I wear around you."

One of Liana's eyebrows raised in response and she elbowed Tim in the ribs, whispering, "I've conveniently left out the fact that said itching powder can't be washed off and sticks to clothes like a fly on wax paper... And makes it impossible _not_ to itch."

At hearing this, Tim felt the oddest compulsion to run as quickly as possible in the opposite direction, but suppressed it, settling for taking a step away from Wolfe to distance himself.

"Don't you think that's a little bit...you know _petty_? I mean...we're on an alien planet, Doctor Winter warned us that we might not be able to get back--" Tim's voice caught in his throat momentarily and he swallowed the lump that had formed, "back t-t-t-to Atlantis...we have bigger things to think about that little disagreements, don't we?"

She shrugged. "When I'm nervous. I scheme. It's a bad habit, I know. But seeing as we're" she gestured vaguely around at the alien landscape that was fast giving way to dense forest, "You know... I can't calm myself down with a carton of ice cream and a movie marathon.."

"Oh," Tim said rather lamely. "Yeah...it is an awful lot to think about...I mean, it's a possibility that we're alone in the galaxy..."

He trailed off and took a deep breath--which turned out to be rather shallow.

"And I mean...it's just us. A very motley little crew..."

He took another breath, this one shallower still.

"With a very small military force..."

Even _less_ oxygen got to him with this breath in.

"With very few weapons and--"

Tim wheezed and his lungs closed up.

_Oh, not AGAIN!_

Liana stopped walking the moment that Tim wheezed. "Dammit!"

She grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to look at her. "Do you have your inhaler with you?"

Tim nodded, fumbling with his jacket pockets and trying to locate--

The inhaler that wasn't there.

Oh, damn. It had been left in the Jumper...

Damn. He was going to die.

Damn. It was going to hurt.

Damn. This really wasn't helping the asthma attack...

"Calm down." She said forcefully.

Tim winced and wheezed harder. "That's…" Wheeze. "Really…" Wheeze. "Not…" Wheeze. "Helping!"

He started repeating a mantra to himself as he tried to calm down and Liana patted his back in what he was sure she thought was a reassuring manner. _I am not going to pass out, I am not going to pass out, I am not going to pass out, I--am totally going to pass out. Oh, WHY did I leave the safety of medical school? Why, why, WHY?!_

Tim leaned over, hoping that putting his head between his knees might _help_...he couldn't keep doing this; people might come to depend on him someday, dammit!

And, oh...there was the ground rushing up to meet his face...again.

He hit the ground and Liana dropped to her knees immediately, thanking every deity she could think of that she had been required to take CPR classes at one point in the past. She rolled him over, tilted his head, and began.

Meanwhile, Winter, who had walked roughly five feet in front of the other scientists with Campbell, turned the moment she heard a sickly 'THUD' coming from behind.

She spun on her heel, nearly losing her balance in the process and grabbing onto Campbell's sleeve for support before she righted herself again and stared at the scene laid in front of her.

Tim lay on his back, obviously unconscious and Wolfe was forcing air into his lungs.

"Oh for Pete's sake! Can't you stay conscious for five minutes under pressure?!"

As Winter shouted and Liana did CPR on him, Tim was having a lovely dream about a mermaid.

Why a mermaid, he couldn't say...maybe it was the fact the stories his mother used to tell him about the creatures had something to do with them saving drowning sailors by giving them air and hauling them back to the surface of the water (his mother had obviously edited the cold hard truth of the mythology, as he had learned in later years that mermaids traditionally were the ones doing the drowning, not the saving).

And that's how he felt, right then. His lungs were expanding and contracting, but he wasn't the one forcing air in and out.

It felt bizarre...

It felt...it felt...

He gasped suddenly, both coming to and realizing that someone was giving him CPR in the exact same instant and he shot up to a sitting position...

Knocking heads with his poor savior.

Dizzy and disoriented, Tim barely had enough time to register the look of relief that had taken hold of Liana's features before she launched herself at him and their lips crashed clumsily together.

"MPH!" was all the coherent vocalization Tim could manage when he was practically attacked by Liana, and he struggled to pry her arms off his form.

She was sticking like a particularly persistent octopus and Tim flailed, tugging at her. This was not the way to recover from oxygen deprivation!

"MPPHIANA!"

Winter had allowed the CPR to continue, but when the geologist regained consciousness, noisily knocked heads with Wolfe and then proceeded to get tackled by the relieved botanist, she thought enough was enough.

She was about to stride over with the intention of grabbing Wolfe and yanking her off Sampson while saying something along the lines of: "Alright, that's enough! We're on a mission, not on a double date at the drive-in!", when Wolfe suddenly came to her senses, leapt away from Sampson and bolted for the nearby woods.

"Damn it!" Winter grabbed her gun and followed, reacting before she had time to realize what she was doing.

This was NOT the way things were supposed to be going!

"Get back here, Wolfe! We don't know what's out there!!"

With a stitch rapidly forming in her side, Winter slipped and slid along the somewhat dewy grass beneath her feet as she chased the runaway scientist. Deeper and deeper into the woods she followed, promising herself that she was going to give Wolfe the chewing out of her career the moment she caught her.

When she finally _did_ catch up with the runaway scientist, Winter skidded to a halt, crashing into her back and almost losing her balance, even as Wolfe swore loudly: "Dammit!"

Glancing up to see what Liana had seen that sent her into a string of curses, Winter couldn't help but join in, swearing a blue streak all her own and not bothering to try to censor herself.

Winter didn't pause in her swearing as she started _slowly_ backing away, tugging at Wolfe's sleeve as she went. "Shit. Shitty McShitShit!"

"Doc-Doctor Winter," Liana stuttered, allowing herself to be dragged along, "I-I didn't know you knew those kinds of words..."

"Trust me," Winter replied nervously, wondering if she had enough ammo to take down the gigantic furry bear-like creature that was _snarling_ at them, "In a situation like this one? I learn awful quick."

She gulped and kept backing away slowly, until her foot hung on a rock and she stumbled, crashing back into the grass with Wolfe's sleeve still in hand.

The bear-thing **roared**, shaking the clearing.

"Oh..._shit_."

"I agree with you there!" Liana exclaimed, scrambling off the ground and pulling Winter with her. "I suggest screaming and running."

The bear-thing roared again, the sound piercing and utterly terrifying.

"Screaming and running. Right. Got it." Winter pulled Wolfe along. "Let's get on that, shall we?"

And the two women commenced their flight from the clearing, doing their best impressions of bats out of hell.

Unfortunately, the bear-thing followed at rather an impressive pace. It appeared to be intelligent, as it was driving them away from the direction they'd come and deeper into the woods toward a small cluster of caves...

"It's trying to hem us in!" Wolfe shouted, "Split up!"

Running on pure adrenaline, Lydia sprinted to the left as Liana took off to the right, her knees protesting the rigorous movement she was forcing them into.

The bear-thing's attention was divided for a split second (the accidental internal pun was not lost on Lydia, even as she made it silently) giving her a moment's worth of advantage, which she used to its fullest potential.

There was a cliff, rapidly making its way into her view as she ran...a very _unstable_ looking cliff...and with the bear-thing behind her being as big as it was, Winter figured if she led it along _just_ so...

_Only one way to find out if it'll work..._

She dashed for the cliffs and paused on what she thought was a piece of rather solid looking rock. Or at least, solid in comparison to the _rest_ of the cliff.

Then she jumped up and down, waving her arms like an escaped insane asylum patient, calling to the bear-thing.

"Hey! Hey Ugly-the-Pooh!" She hopped again and the bear-thing lumbered towards her. "Yeah! Come get me! Mmm, yummy, snarky physicist! Tastes like chicken!"

The moment the bear-thing set itself on the unstable ground, the cliff started to crumble away, the creature falling--presumably--to its death with an angry cry.

And though her plan worked, Winter couldn't help but think that maybe...just _maybe_ this hadn't been such a good idea after all; because when the cliff with the bear-thing on it fell away...her 'solid' piece of rock did too, causing her to find herself standing on not-so-solid _air_ and grabbing at whatever was convenient.

As the ground started sliding and she started groping for something to hang onto, she _barely_ caught hold of a tree root that was sticking out of the soil where the cliff had disintegrated and slid over the edge of the cliff, hanging on for dear life.

"HELP!"

Winter heard the sound of rapid footfalls, which skidded to a stop directly over her, sending dirt and debris flying into her eyes. "Hang on, Doctor Winter!"

Lydia spat, blinking and trying to clear her eyes. "What do you _think_ I'm doing, floating on air?!"

A makeshift rope made of clothing was lowered over Lydia and she looked up when it smacked her in the face. She grabbed it just as the root she'd been hanging onto snapped in half and started climbing, scrambling up the five feet of cliff face with some difficulty.

When her hands wriggled up over the edge of the cliff, grass and dirt squishing between her fingers, she relaxed marginally and pulled herself up, collapsing on her back in the grass, trying to catch her breath.

"Hey, Wolfe? Next time you're feeling embarrassed, do me a favor?" Winter spoke between gasps. "_Don't_ run into the woods."

"Only if you promise not to fall off of anymore cliffs," Liana replied, untying the pair of pants and shirt that she'd knotted together to make a rope.

Winter glared up at Wolfe.

"Need I remind you that this wouldn't have happened if you had just been able to keep your lips to yourself?" she said scathingly, crawling off the ground and brushing herself off. "You darted into the forest as a result. Unarmed. On a _hostile planet_. Don't get me wrong, I understand the lapse of control--but it's that sort of thing that could cost you your _life_."

Winter straightened her shirt collar a bit and fluffed her hair, partially slipping out of commanding-officer-scold-mode. "Now that I've chastised you properly, what's say we head back to Campbell and Sampson?"

She started off, waving a hand in the general direction of her companion. "And on the way, _just_ to pass the time, you understand, you can spill."

Wolfe just stood, staring after Winter for a few moments before her brain kicked into gear and she ran after the other woman. "What do you _mean_ spill?"

Winter let a smirk creep up on her features.

"You didn't think you were going to get away with _kissing_ another member of this team without explaining yourself, did you?" She glanced at Wolfe. "I mean...as far as I know, you only met the guy after I sent you in to sit with him...half an hour later, you're sucking his face off in the middle of a life or death situation...so 'spilling' entails two things: One, _why_ and two...how was it?"

Wolfe blushed and looked away. "Well…to answer your first question, I'm not quite sure... I just felt so relieved that he was alive that I did the first thing that came to mind-- and don't give me that look!-- and as for the second one. It was…um…fantastic."

Lydia laughed, glad for the moment she was able to forget the seriousness of the situation at hand.

"Even when he was flailing and trying to get away, huh? Impressive." She grinned like a maniac for a second before reality came crashing back on her like the world's biggest, wettest wet blanket.

Sure, dishing about guys would be acceptable under normal circumstances--and this was a nice distraction from just how royally screwed their team was--but it couldn't last and she knew it. "As much as I'm enjoying the fact that this little jaunt hasn't been _all_ disaster...I'm afraid I have to remind you that we really can't afford any...shall we say 'distractions'? Aside from that, I get the distinct impression you'd have a fight on your hands with Harris over Sampson--I mean, did you see the way she was looking at him?--and one power struggle between her and another crew member is plenty at the moment."

She cleared her throat. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but as soon as we're back with Campbell and Sampson, I'm going to send both of you back to the Jumper. Don't worry--I'll give you my weapon and we weren't that far away from the rest of the team--but the fact of the matter is, Sampson doesn't have his inhaler with him and one more dramatic episode will just slow us down _more_, if not end in him pushing up the proverbial daisies. I'm trusting you to be as professional as possible on your way back to the Jumper, Wolfe..."

Liana sent a glare at Winter. "Yeah, yeah... I won't flirt... _Too_ much."

Winter tipped her head at Liana, eyes narrowed.

"You always think the worst of me, Lydia." She said as they cleared the densest part of the forest and were back in the area where they'd originally left their other teammates. "And besides...I get the feeling that we both have _very_ different ideas of the word 'professional'."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I was rereading the forum posts from which this story was born...and I was instantly reminded of just how much it rocks. So, here we go again. Players? Get back to the forum! Readers? Enjoy!

_-_

_Meanwhile…_

Harris watched as Winter, Campbell, Wolfe and Sampson walked off in the direction of the trading post, then turned to see the unorganized mess that was the passing out the supplies.

"Williamson! Mason!" The Marines flinched. Harris walked up to them in full military mode. "Didn't I tell you to do something?" she asked dangerously. "Remember boys, Winter might be the leader, but I am still the highest ranking officer here. You _do_ remember what rank means?" She kept her voice cold, commanding. The men nodded and went to do the tasks they were charged with.

"Okay folks, its not a long walk just up the dunes. Take as much as you can carry, and drop it off till we have the camping gear and some of the rations. Some of you will be staying there to start making camp, understand?"

Heads nodded, and people got in line. Mason stopped the engineer tech and handed him a half a dozen bedrolls and sent him of on his way. The bedrolls were stacked high enough that he really couldn't see where he was going and nearly bumped into Harris.

"Whoa there, partner." She took off the top three bedrolls. "Why don't I take those?" She smiled.

"Alrighty folks follow me!" She called over her shoulder. "Hey... uh.." She couldn't remember the man's name. Hell, she didn't now most of the science staff. "Why don't you walk with me?" She asked, smiling.

For Chris Perkins, walking with an armload of bedrolls was challenging enough. Speaking while walking with an armload of bedrolls proved to be more so.

"Per. Kins. Chris. Per. Kins."

He felt a roll on top trying to make a break for it. He shifted his weight to compensate. It resulted in more of a stagger than a balance of forces, but he kept the stack together.

"I suck at this, just so you know."

Harris snorted as she took another bedroll, seeing as her companion had the balance of a drunken ballerina.

"Good to met ya, Per. Kins." She said the last name with a mischievous grin on her face.

She herself carried the bedrolls with ease, seeing as she had done a training exercise similar (albeit under far different circumstances) to this.

"Name's Harris. Captain Jamie M. Harris, United States Air Force, nice to meet cha."

_And on the other side of the camp…_

Lieutenant Bennett "Rustling" Hall (it was never a good idea to ask him where he got his nickname, as that was the sort of thing that could find you suddenly with a broken finger or ten), despite having joined the Marines, wasn't the type of person who enjoyed physical labor. Sure, the few, the proud...they were touted as being strong and with stamina to spare in all battle situations, that didn't necessarily mean he liked pitching _tents_ out in the middle of God-knows-where with God-knows-who, being ordered around by a Captain who was obviously too big for her britches...

Then again, Bennett thought most everyone was flawed in some form or another, especially those in positions of authority over _him_. How he had ever made it through boot camp was a mystery that nobody alive could possibly hope to solve...in theory, his problem with authority figures was too pronounced, but apparently, he was a good enough officer to keep his head above water when it came to those nasty exams and training courses that the military just _loved_ to run its people through.

None of that mattered _now_ though. Here, in the Pegasus galaxy, under his current circumstances, things like how many push-ups he could do and how many tests he'd passed with flying colors didn't matter, as much as he wished the facts were to the contrary. In fact, on this alien planet, in potentially hostile surroundings with potentially the-last-of-the-Atlantis-Expedition, it mattered even less than it might have in the city.

And Bennett knew it.

Furthermore, he _hated_ it. Even as he set up one of the tents with assistance from a scientist, he scowled.

Pain seared through Bennett's left hand and he yanked it away from the tent, sucking air through his teeth and examining the cut that now graced the face of his palm.

"Just _great._" Bennett waved his arm over his head. "Anybody got a med kit handy?"

...good God, were bad puns _contageous_?

_And running back over here now…_

"Air Force, huh?" Perkins asked with interest. "I'm in Engineering. That means people only pay attention to me when something breaks. But at least it looks like..."

The scientist went searching for a rank or salutation to use for Campbell, but he came to the sudden realization that he wasn't even sure the guy had one.

"...at least it looks like Campbell will keep me gainfully employed. Only, if we're supposedly the last surviving members of the expedition, I'm not sure who is going to sign my paycheck."

She looked at him and rolled her eyes. "If we're the only ones left from 'Lantis, your paycheck should be the last of your worries. Seriously, I'd be more worried about your life."

"True, but I doubt the lack of overhead is going to cut down on the amount of death defying perils we're likely to encounter. In fact, it's likely to multiply them exponentially, in which case the hazard of collateral damage is likely to multiply as well. Damage that myself and the other technologically inclined will have to repair.

Even assuming we manage to quite consistently not blow ourselves up, the Jumpers still need maintenance and a recharge every one in a while. How we're going to manage that, I haven't quite figured out. Though, really, IF we are the last and IF word of us gets around, we just might become the collective target of every enemy we've ever made in this galaxy. If not for pure vengeance, then to harvest the vastly superior knowledge we... well... most of us possess of the natural and mathematical science, not to mention Ancient technology."

His breath got a little sparse as he made it to the top of the dune.

"And since... I doubt that the later event... comes with a good dental plan... I must assume that... attentively applying... my skills here... is in... the best interests of... my foreseeable future."

Harris had a hard time not laughing, though she blamed it on nerves.

"Well there Doc. You got this entire thing all planed out don't cha." She cocked a feisty grin. "Use you're skills to get back home, avoiding every baddie we come across and get paid eh?"

"I'd rather just skip to the getting paid part. The Total Action Hero thing isn't my style." Perkins said with a shrug. "I bruise easily."

"Hopefully we don't have to be Total Action Heroes." she said. "Even if I don't bruise much if at all." She tried to give a comforting simile to the tech.

Upon reaching the central area of their camp-to-be, Chris dropped his pile of bedrolls with decided relief. He then noticed the injured Lieutenant Hall waving for a med kit.

"Wow, that looks bad," stated Chris, stating the obvious. He'd thought he'd seen on of his fellow crewmates with the box and pointed them over to the Marine.

Turning back to Harris, he continued. "You mean you hope I don't have to be the Action Hero. Because, seriously, the day I ever have to shoot something is the day we all die horrible, painful deaths excruciating agony. So far the only side-effects I've suffered from your ace tricks is a slight case of vertigo."

Harris snorted. "I hope none of the science team needs to feel like an Action Hero, seeing as I don't trust most of you with a gun." She winced. "No offense, but I have seen some bad shit happen with people that have very little idea of how a gun works."

She sighed. "Some of ya'll can calculate the forces involved with the gun and figure out the Newtons and stuff. But recoil is still recoil, and far too often they end up shooting themselves in the foot or wasting bullets."

"That's exactly why any of my 'attack' plans are less about actually attacking and more about building a really, really big rocket and maximum thrusting myself in the complete opposite direction," Perkins replied, watching curiously as Hall struggled with the medkit that one of the team had handed him. "Because, even if I totally screw up and blow myself to Kingdom Come, at least no one will likely survive the blast to go back and tell everyone what an idiot I am."

Even as Harris and Perkins continued talking, Hall struggled to get some gauze out, and slapped it on his injury, hopping to get the wound to clot.

He went through three large sections of gauze and the bleeding still didn't stop...

"Okay...that's bad."

Though Perkins took notice of Hall's troubles, Harris paid him no mind; he could have been invisible for all she let on as set her stack of bedrolls on top of Perkins', then stretched and cracked her back. "Sounds like a good plan to me, except you know the dying part." She looked around. Most of the stuff that they needed to set up camp with was accounted for. Granted everyone would end up double bunking and in some cases, triple, but that was nothing new. She tapped her radio, telling Williamson and Mason to stop passing out gear; but to stay there as guards till she sent someone to relieve them.

Leaning over, she lifted and then tossed a bag to Perkins before picking one up herself. "So how good are you at puttin' up tents?"

He blinked. "I broke three fingers setting one up once... Did I mention I'm an _electrical_ engineer?"

Chris stared at Lieutenant Hall, blood dripping quite impressively from his hand.

"And, um. Should we, you know, do something about that?"

For the first time, Harris stopped what she was doing and turned to look at the Lieutenant. The amount of red staining his hand was positively _alarming_.

"Shit!" She exclaimed, then dropped her tent and ran towards him.

_OhcrapOhcrapOhcrapOhcrapOHCRAP_!! Was the refrain running through her head as she skid to stop in front on the injured man. Harris dropped to her knees and took his hand, pulling the gauze away none too gently to look at the wound underneath.

"Shit. How long has this been bleeding like this?" She asked fiercely.

Hall glared at the woman who had oh-so-suddenly taken an interest in the fact his blood was, apparently, very, very thin today. "Long enough for me to go through three rolls of gauze, you unobservant twit. God, and _you're_ the ranking military officer on this rock? I'd rather take orders from a fire hydrant!"

She looked at him coldly. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," she said. "I'm also going to pretend that you addressed me properly, so I don't have to go and shoot you for being insubordinate. I would also suggest you sit here like a good little boy we both know you are while I call for the medic to give you stitches for that paper cut of yours." She smiled at the Lieutenant with a sugary sweet simile. She had meant every word of it. She had broken bones before in the line of duty, and still had addressed her commanding officers properly; she expected the same.

She stood and tapped on her radio. "Dr. Winter, I'm going to need Sampson on the double, we have an injury. Its a cut, its small, but its going to need stitches. Over."

"Paper cut?" Hall roared, yanking his hand away. "I don't know what kind of sick little power trip you're on, sister, but you better pull it together and act like a God damn professional!

What if this had been a more serious wound? This is already a damn bit more blood than I'm comfortable losing and you only _just_ noticed, despite the fact it's your _job_ to keep on top of things like that! If my hand had been lopped off at the wrist, would you have been so bubble headed to ignore _that_ too? Or to threaten me for calling you on your ignorance _then_?

You're so glad to be in charge of this little group until there's trouble and then you turn into a _shrew_. This isn't a training exercise and this _isn't_ a game. You don't get to act like a spoiled **brat** just because you've got one more bar than I do."

Hall stood, grabbing the med kit and tapping his own radio. "Winter? Delay that. I'll meet Sampson and Wolfe halfway."

With the speed and accuracy that even she was uncomfortable with, she pulled her gun out of her holster and held it to the side of his head, with one hand. She pressed it to his skull.

"I gave you a request, **Lieutenant**. Would you like it to be an order?" Harris said calmly as you please, flicking off the safety.

"Listen up, unhinged bitch-in-the-box, what're you gonna do, shoot me? You think that's going to win you a popularity contest? _Spare me._ I don't care how badass you _think_ you are; this action right here?" Hall gestured around. "And all these witnesses? You're already looking at getting a field _demotion_. And do you honestly think anybody is going to trust you after _this_? You can't handle a little verbal sparring, so you whip out a _gun_? Oh, yeah. 'cause violence solves everything.

Tell you what, you want respect? You've gotta deserve it...and right now? You don't deserve _shit_." Hall took two steps forward and glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. "Like I said...act like a fucking _professional_."

She looked at him calmly for a second. Then sent out a single shot that grazed his ear, the bullet sinking itself into a tree.

"Solider. This is me professional, how do you think I survived in Iraq for a year?" She walked up to him, grabbing him by the shoulder and forcefully turning him to face her, pressing the gun against the underside of his chin.

"I know this is no popularity contest. This is a fight for survival, a fight that I don't intend to lose. Now, you little shit, learn the words chain of command or you will not eat. Do you understand me?" she shook him then released him, pushing him aside.

"Roger that Dr. Winter. He'll meet Wolfe and Sampson halfway at the Jumper where he'll relieve Williamson and Mason." The she turned back to the rest of the camp. They stood there frozen in shook. In her mind she sighed.

"Alrighty, back to work folks those tents won't go up themselves!".

Then she walked back to where Chris stood shocked, and picked up the tent that she dropped, and smiled. "Now where we. Broken fingers you say?"

"Yep, Hammers and I don't really get along." His hand went for a pack on his back, but found his back bare of all luggage.

"Shoot. I left my stuff in the Jumper. I'ma gonna have to run back and get it real quick. I don't wanna risk the dunes after the sun sets."

Waving an unnecessary goodbye, Chris was sliding back down the dunes before he'd even finished speaking.

Ducking into the Jumper, he straightened, stepped forward, and looked around determinedly..

"Now, if I were a hatch locking switch, what would I look like?"

After a moments searching, he came up empty.

"Screwit."

He reached under the dash and pulled a handful of crystals.

"That should do."

Back in the camp, Williamson and Mason, whipped their weapons out and held their sights on Harris.

"Captain, we're going to need to to stay right there."


	9. Chapter 9

__

Meanwhile over with Winter and her team…

Jason's head was already dizzy with confusion when he saw Wolfe sprint off into the forest, but Winter following her only confirmed his worst suspicions: Karma did exist, and all those years of scampering away from Mom and screaming his head off were coming back to bite him in the ass.

"Wolfe! Winter!" he seethed. He wanted to run after them, but wasn't sure a male presence would be particularly welcome.

Tim, still dazed from his asthma attack and the ensuing kiss that followed, stared after the two scientists as they darted into the trees with bewilderment that matched that of Campbell. "I don't supposed you have a guide on what makes women tick on you, do you?"

Jason's brow furrowed. How did he explain to Tim that the last woman he'd been involved with had been a ex-Wraith priestess who got him so hyped up on the Wraith enzyme that he couldn't see straight?

He went for the simple answer, "No."

Jason put a hand on the other man's shoulder to steady him. "You gonna be all right?"

"Oh...yeah. I'm going to be _fine_," Tim replied in a mutter. "The whole universe is upside down--I've got women _diving_ at me for no reason; why would there be anything _wrong_?"

Tim shook his head as though to clear it of the cobwebs lurking there. "I'm sure _you_ might be used to this sort of attention from the opposite sex--maybe even the _same_ sex--but I most certainly am _not_...I'm a wreck!" Tim shook his fists for emphasis. "Did you see me?! I'm fainting all over the place! I'm enough of a mess under _normal_ circumstances, now I'm getting _attention_ and that's just making it worse!"

"Aww, now who could resist a pout like that?" Jay chided, smiling. "Don't let them mess with your head too much. Just play it cool, and relax. Chicks are like dogs, they smell the fear and jump on it... Or rip your clothes off in a bout of hormonal ecstasy, but we won't really go there."

Jason smirked. "'Sides, there's worse things that could happen to you than having someone who looks like Wolfe becoming physically glued to you at the oral orifice."

Jay's smile slowly turned to a frown. They'd been gone a while and he was debating going and looking for them.

"For the record, though, I don't have such a hot track record myself," he said, seriously considering starting towards the grove of trees. He was getting worried.

However, just as he was about to suggest to Tim that they needed to go looking for their wayward teammates, Wolfe pushed through the dense forest and came into view, Winter close behind.

Winter had caught up with Wolfe rather quickly after their little girl talk and, hearing her muttering to herself as they walked--she was certain it was something along the lines of 'Why me?'--she offered the most sympathetic look she could muster that would go unnoticed by the two men they were rapidly approaching, patting her on the arm.

"Don't worry about it...I'm sure he wants to talk about it even less than you do," she said from one corner of her mouth, gaining a grateful look in return.

Winter smiled and nodded, then strode up to Campbell and Sampson, yanking her tattered uniform jacket by its lapels. "Gentlemen--"

"What in blue blazes happened to _you_?" Timothy asked, gaping at Winter's torn, dirty clothes. "Did you get into a fight with an Ent or what?"

"Close!" Wolfe said, brightening considerably. "She was chased by a bear and fell off a cliff."

Jason's eyes snapped up.

"What the hell?" he turned a glare on Winter. "Am I going to have to put the lot of you in padded armor and fashion a force field around you?"

"And this is how accident-prone we are on a good day." Liana said. Wincing at the memory of one of her 'bad days'

"It was not a _bear_...it was a bear _thing_--there's a slight, but very important difference," Winter pointed out. "But, our little extra curricular activities _aside_; I'm sending you two back to camp. You can't be off gallivanting about without your inhaler...and the trip will go faster with just two people anyway."

Winter handed her weapon over to Wolfe--she looked to be the more competent of the two when it came to handling anything that was in danger of going 'boom'--and took a place next to Campbell.

"We're going on ahead. Stay safe."

"But we were just starting to get to know each other," Jason said in feigned disappointment. "But I agree. We gotta gets to gettin', and we don't have the time to walk them back again AND hope to get to the post. We're cutting it close as it is." He watched the two walk off. "It's on your head if Harris blows a gasket for handing Wolfe a gun."

Turning back toward the post. "Have you thought about how we want to go about this yet? Where we want to go from here?"

"Where we want to go? You'll have to be a bit more specific...I mean…first we have to find out if..." Lydia was tempted to censor herself, but didn't. This was Jason, after all. "If Atlantis really is gone and if we really are alone...I uh...don't have a plan, really."

Winter laughed nervously. "The most logical thing to do is just hold it together as long as we can and do as much recon as possible wherever we go. We'll start traveling to all the gate addresses we've got, one after another...make a few allies, get some intel on what might have happened to Atlantis, gather some ZPMs so we might be able to contact Earth...and keep dialing, just in case there's just something wrong with the gate back...back home."

Both Winter's and Campbell's radios hummed to life, the voices of Hall and Harris coming over the airwaves, sharp, clear and obviously annoyed with one another; first a call for Sampson to head back to camp, then another telling them to delay that. The patient was coming to meet him halfway.

Campbell groaned. "What happened back there? Can we not leave them alone for five seconds? I don't wanna turn around and head back, but I'd kinda like to come back to a team in one piece, preferably."

"We can't hold their hands forever," Winter replied, still marching stubbornly forward. "Wish we could, but we can't. Besides, we have a duty to them to get whatever intel and supplies we can from this trading post, right? What's the worst that could _possibly_ happen while we're gone for a couple of hours? A black eye? A lost temper? I'm not worried..."

A shot rang out, sharp and violent against the otherwise peaceful landscape.

Jason stopped dead in his tracks when he heard gunfire, whirling around he sputtered, "What the hell was that?"

With barely a look to Winter he was off and running back to the camp, adrenaline pumping and senses tuned in to the whole of his surroundings.

He flipped on his radio. "Captain, what the HELL is going on back there?"

__

"Nothing, Doctor Campbell. Nothing for you to worry about, anyhow."

Came the disconnected, hollow, somewhat dreamy reply.

Winter's reaction time was slower than Campbell's, and her legs were already sore from the mad dash to get away from the alien bear thing, but she skidded into camp a few yards behind Campbell, finding one crew member with a piece out of his ear and two marines pointing their weapons at Harris, who looked as though absolutely nothing was wrong.

"WHAT THE HELL!?"


	10. Chapter 10

Harris, completely unaffected by her bizarre situation, looked Winter, who was red in the face, panting…and gave her clothes' pathetic condition a look as well.

Jason leveled his stunner at the Captain from a safe distance away. "Harris, why don't you tell us nice and calmly what is going on here?"

"I assuming, you didn't make it to the trading post?" Harris asked calmly.

Winter seethed. "Gee, I wonder WHY. First we had a medical emergency and now I come back to camp to find an even bigger one?!"

Winter reached for her own weapon, only to realize too late that it was gone.

Harris ignored Winter's statement, electing to reply to Campbell instead. "There was an issue of military command between myself and Lieutenant Hall. I gave him an order, which he directly disobeyed, so I took the necessary actions to compensate." She smiled at Campbell.

Jason nodded. "You're right, Harris. There's no excuse for disobeying an order. A soldier is to support his commander in all things, or at least give the appearance. Not to do so is considered called either contempt or mutiny."

He, however, kept his stunner trained on the woman.

"But there's a word for turning a gun on a fellow soldier, Captain. It's called treason."

Winter and Campbell looked at each other before Winter narrowed her eyes dangerously at Harris. "I see three things here, Captain--I see a crewman who's bleeding; I see two marines with their weapons trained on _you_ and I see an awful lot of frightened faces; the kinds of faces that have seen somebody take a few steps too precariously close to the edge of sanity. I can only draw one conclusion--you've lost your God damn mind."

"Maybe so Doctor Winter. Maybe so," Harris answered, a bit too serenely.

Winter ignored the other woman and jerked her head at the marines with Harris in their sights. "Williamson, Mason, take her weapons. Captain Harris, you are relieved of duty."

Harris' hung her head momentarily and then looked up at her teammates, her posture one of surrender as she laid her weapon on the ground. "Very well, Doctor Winter…but I think, when you speak to the people who witnessed what happened here today, you'll see that the proceedings were justified."

Bennett shouted, holding his already bloody hand to his now equally bloody ear, "I don't care whether you think you were justified or not, shooting at somebody is NOT an acceptable course of action!"

Hall felt a little bit dizzy suddenly, all the blood loss and high blood pressure converging in his system very suddenly.

"You're completely unbalanced, lady; you don't deserve to wear that uniform!"

Bennett's dizziness intensified and his knees collapsed, leaving him kneeling on the ground and wondering, not for the first time, and not for the last, what was going on around this place to make him feel so damn _strange_...

"And you don't deserve the life you have, seeing as I saved it from the Wraith little more than an hour ago, if you don't remember." Harris spat, some of the fight coming back to her, even though her eyes still looked a little bit glazed.

"That is ENOUGH, Captain Harris!" Winter shouted in her best no-nonsense tone of voice. "You will stop acting like a child with a pop-gun or I will pack everyone up in the Jumper and leave your sorry ass on this planet.

Harris thought about saying that the only person on the plant other than her trained for flying the thing was Campbell, or the fact that she could easily survive long enough on the island to get off it at some point, people came by on this planet all the time, and it wasn't that she didn't have places that she knew that she could go…

But Harris refrained, and sat down, suddenly tired after the few hours of adrenaline that was running through her system.

"Yes Doctor Winter," she said as if she was but a young child talking to her teacher.

Winter nodded sharply, looking every bit the disapproving mother.

"As for YOU, Hall--" Winter turned to the bleeding man, "We do not need petty squabbles complicating matters further!! While I don't agree with the extreme course of action she took--indeed, if we were under different circumstances, I'd have her committed to the nearest loony bin--you are not to antagonize ANYONE purposely and maliciously and that goes for Harris as well!

Now, Hall get yourself cleaned up, everyone else finish setting up camp and Mason, I expect you to stay with Harris at all times; the moment that Sampson makes it into camp, have him check both Hall and Harris for anything out of the ordinary."


	11. Chapter 11

Huffing and puffing, Tim made it into camp just in time to see Harris--under the watchful eye of three other people with weapons--laying her gun on the ground.

He heard another marine's angry shouting and his eyes were drawn to the ghoulishly Technicolor blood gushing out between his fingers that were plastered to the side of his head.

"Oh...oh _God_."

Strangely enough, Tim didn't feel nauseous or dizzy...instead, he felt invigorated; ready for anything...prepared to face whatever dangers might lay ahead in order to help his fellow man.

It was truly, truly weird. He'd left medical school for his _true_ true calling, didn't he?

_"The moment that Sampson makes it into camp, have him check both Hall and Harris for anything out of the ordinary."_

"I'm here, Doctor Winter!" Tim called, waving an arm and trying to catch his breath properly. "I'll start on sutures right away!"

The geologist turned makeshift medic started towards his patient, grabbing a medkit on the way and dropping down next to Hall, starting immediately to the task at hand.

If he hadn't been feeling so extraordinarily weak, Hall might've winced. As it was, he simply didn't have the strength for it. He didn't like needles just as much as he didn't like physical labor...

But, it was better to be patched up nice and neat than to be sitting here bleeding to death for some unknown reason...

Why _was_ he bleeding so heavily, anyways? Even as the whoever-he-was with a med kit started working on him, he couldn't figure out why two wounds that _should_ have been relatively small were bleeding so impressively...

He felt the pull of delicate medical work being done on his tender ear and this time, he did manage a wince--even a grimace--but he said nothing until he was properly bandaged and being hauled to his feet.

Grim-faced, Jason had made his way to the wounded Lieutenant, waiting until Sampson was done with his work. The man looked pretty beat up, and Jason could almost understand being a little testy under the circumstances.

Almost.

With a slight, reassuring nod, he spoke to Hall.

"We'll take care of Harris and get this whole thing sorted out, but Winter was right. You and I BOTH know bitching out a commanding officer, no matter how much you really, really want to, is a strict no-no. You deserve a court martial.

Problem is, we're in an odd circumstance. Right now we may have no court higher than ourselves, so we're stuck at a crossroads -- a legal, moral, and logical conflict.

You're compelled by code to take command, but we're in a legal grey area seeing as how you've committed offenses yourself. A Military court of law may or may not see you as unfit giving the circumstances. We're at a moral impasse because both you and Harris acted in probably the worst ways considering the situation, she just happened to be the one with the gun.

Most importantly, we're at a logical impasse. We need every man, woman, and pilot, and we need a strong chain of command -- what chain exists between four people, anyway.

So, the question comes down to letting either of you retain command. Winter already made the decision to relieve Harris, and we've established that the grounds for it falling to you are shaky, but justifiable. So I'm going to make that decision easy on all involved."

SMACK!

Jason struck the Lieutenant clean across the jaw, knocking him down.

He then shot him with the stunner just for good measure.

"Can't take command if you're unconscious," Jason hissed. "Williamson! Mason!"

The two Marines perked up.

"Which one of you is paid more than the other?"

Williamson glanced to Mason, then piped up. "I'm Second Lieutenant."

Jason again nodded. "Good, you're in charge. And by in charge I mean you will obey Winter like she's the very voice of God. Are we clear?"

"As crystal."

"Good," Jason winced and shook his hand out. "Now I'm hungry."

__

Meanwhile...

Chris Perkins sat in the darkened Jumper feeling both extremely proud of himself and, at the same time, extremely stupid. Pulling the power crystals, he figured, had been a good idea. Without them, no one could operate the Jumper, regardless of their genetic disposition. And, he figured, a sealed up jumper was probably the safest place in the general vicinity, short of hauling ass through the gate itself.

Thing was, he hadn't really thought ahead, nor had he anticipated the fact that pulling said crystals would reset the whole system. And, like a rebooted computer demanding a password, so did the jumper want someone with the gene. Which he happened to lack. Leaving him stuck in a jumper, locked up tight with no hope of getting out.

Well, there was one way. He clicked his radio.

"Um. Hi out there. This is Perkins... I need a little help."

And as he recited his predicament, he resigned to the fact that he was never, ever going to live this one down.

Jason sighed, rolled his eyes, then rolled his shoulders, and moved in the direction of the Jumper. "I'll be right there, Doc," he called over his radio.

He was down the dunes and beside the Jumper before too long. He walked around to the front, so that he was staring through the windshield into the back of the jumper. Waving his hand to catch the doctor's attention he pointed out a manual release switch near the back of the ship.

"Just pull that, Doc."

Chris pulled the valve and winced sheepishly as the hatch opened. Awkwardly, but it opened and he stepped out into the fading sunlight. He glanced to Campbell.

"Go on. You might as well get it over with."

Walking back around the Jumper and leading the scientist back up the dunes, Jason merely shook his head. "Just... don't do it again, okay?"

Tired, hungry, and with a mood sinking by the minute, Jason strode back into camp. The others, busily trying to put the days events behind them, scurried about camp making what preparations they could.

During all of this, Winter had been trying to get her blood pressure to return to a safer level than it had been mere moments before, Winter rubbed her forehead absently and trudged towards Campbell...

Just in time to see him knock out Hall quite thoroughly.

She smacked her own forehead, rather wishing she could smack _Campbell_. Was everyone _trying_ to make this harder than it absolutely _had_ to be? Granted, Hall had been out of line--so had Harris--there was no denying they had both acted like complete idiots--and though Hall would have been in charge if he'd still been conscious, there had t be a better way of keeping him from taking command than knocking him silly.

With a sigh, Winter turned away from the scene and strolled over to the nearest tree, sinking down at its base.

There had to be an easier, less destructive and childish way to run a mission...there _had_ to be. She sighed, taking her radio off and rubbing her ear tiredly, missing the exchange between Perkins and his rescuer completely and not sparing another thought to the world outside herself until she spotted Jason walking towards her, running one hand through his hair as he plopped down next to her.

"So, I guess all chance of getting to the post tonight has been shot to Hell."

"I think that's a safe assumption," Winter replied sourly. "I don't know why the powers that be saw to stick me with the most childish crew in the history of mankind...but they did...and something tells me we're all going to suffer for it."

She scrubbed a hand over her face tiredly. "We've got enough rations to last us a couple of days, if we space them out a bit...and if one of our comrades decides to off another, that's a few more rations to go around. Provided we don't decide to cannibalize the body, naturally."

Winter sagged against the tree. "We'll have to try for the trading post tomorrow...but I don't know how in the hell we're going to do it. It's like the old riddle about the guy, the sack of grain, the goose and the fox.

If I take you with me, there's nobody in camp I really trust to keep things in line, and besides that, I don't want to leave Harris and Hall anywhere _near_ each other--therefore, the only way to keep them apart is to take one of 'em with me.

I can't--no, I _won't_ take a madwoman like Harris with me--and Hall is..well, you _stunned_ him. If he wasn't happy with Harris doing whatever it was she did, he's going to be _pissed_ at you for doing that...so there's a reason to keep you away from him, but there again, I have a sinking feeling about leaving Mason or Williamson in charge.

God, I'm giving myself a headache. What do _you_ think we should do, Jay?"

"Well, the way I see it, you go with Hall tomorrow morning -- assuming he's not too self conscious about the welt he's going to have tomorrow morning -- or one of us goes in alone."

Jason scratched his chin, brushing a hand through the stubble that had started to grow in the days away from the city. "Breaking the group up into halfsies might be a thought, but if they're this unruly in private, I'd hate to think how they'd act in public."

Winter nodded. "The last thing we need is to scare off potential allies with their shenanigans...and while Hall may have mouthed off, that's nowhere near the level of unacceptable as _shooting_ somebody. If I take him with us tomorrow though, I may be tempted to do the same...

Maybe halfsies is the way to go. Hall can come with us, just to keep him away from Harris...and _hopefully_ the other Marines will be able to keep everyone in check.

But after the events of this afternoon, I have very little faith in the continued survival of this team. If our highest ranking military officers are going to act like kindergartners with guns, we are completely, totally, _royally_ screwed."

Jason looked at Lydia appraisingly. "So then, who goes with who? You're saying 'us' like you want me with you, but it sounds like you want me and Hall as far from each other as possible. Much as I don't care for his attitude at the moment, I don't doubt his skill with a gun. Or did you want us to burn the post down with the collective force of our testosterone?"

Winter snorted. "As much as I hate to admit _this_...and as selfish as it may be...I'd like you watching my back too--even if Hall _is_ handy with a weapon. Besides, upon further reflection--a lot of which has to do with that bear-thing I ran out to in the woods out there--I've decided that maybe having a couple of people with military training watching out for me wouldn't be such a bad idea. Especially considering the fact that while we know what's lurking _here_, we have no idea what'll be waiting for us out _there_...

So, what'dya say, Jay? You gonna be my gun toting buddy come the morrow?"

"That depends, do I get a little food out of the deal?"

His stomach growled, as if on cue.

"The reigning lord of the Lantean Paintball League does not lend his services on an empty stomach!"

From the other side of the tree, Wolfe--who had apparently managed to get into camp with Sampson without anyone noticing and then sat down to wait out the team drama--muttered loud enough for Jason and Winter to hear, "Rainbow paintballs."

Jason smirked at Wolfe's mumbling. He had to admit a smile felt good after all this frustration.

"Bad experience, I presume?"

"Two things I will never talk about: the gnome incident and the paintball incident. Thank you, you have been listening to the shorter version of the story of my life," Wolfe replied. "Chapter twenty three: Traumatic events from puberty-age 21."

Jason laughed.

"Odd how some of the worst experiences in one's life can happen on the paintball field. On my very first day in the city, I was introduced to the Paintball level deep under the east wing. We were gone so long that Dr. Weir herself came looking for us -- and dang near got shot up like a dummy in a firing range.

Should have heard the tongue lashing she gave the Colonel for that one."

Jason smirked again, but more muted this time. Despite the fondness of the memories, his heart sank to think of all that made that memory so warm and amusing was lost or dead to the cold of space.

The whole reason he'd run away from Earth. Dead.

Noticing how cold it was starting to become, he rubbed his arms and tried to force a smile. Still no luck.

"I'm thinking I might just skip dinner and get some sleep..."

"I'm with you on that one. It's been a trying day for everyone and the faster we all get to sleep, the faster it'll be morning."

Winter's stomach growled. "But I think I'm going to grab something to nosh on first...if you'll excuse me."

She stood up and started across the encampment.

"You two do that. I'll stay here and watch... the sunset." Liana said, smiling innocently as her gaze trailed over to where Tim was approaching Harris.


End file.
